Sidney Altman Quotes

I come from a middle class family, and my parents weren't too supportive of my career choices.

I grew up in a middle-class family. I went to law school.

I was born in Chicago in 1927, the only child of Morris and Mildred Markowitz, who owned a small grocery store. We lived in a nice apartment, always had enough to eat, and I had my own room. I never was aware of the Great Depression.

It never occurred to me that I wouldn't go to college and have a career - as well as a family - of my own. Both my parents, but especially my mother, encouraged me and led me to believe that it was possible.

My parents always encouraged us to get an education and establish a profession. However, my brothers and I grew up with considerable freedom, whether it was saving or spending our tips from the restaurant or our career choices.

My dad never graduated high school. He was a printing salesman. We lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath house in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. We weren't rich - but we felt secure.

I was fortunate to grow up in a middle-class home with two hardworking parents who enjoyed both reading and mathematics.

We definitely weren't poor growing up, but we weren't rich.

I didn't come from a trailer park. I grew up middle class and my dad had money and my mom made my lunch. I got a car when I was sixteen. I'm proud of that.

I was lucky to have a successful career as a model, but that was just a way to pay off my college loans.

Both of my parents graduated from high school, both attended college, both have government jobs now. They've always been very adamant about me finishing high school and finishing college.

My father insisted that each of us have a career. His family were refugees and he understood the vicissitudes of fortune.

I don't come from a rich family, but my parents are professionals.

I'd earned over a million dollars by the time I was old enough to vote.

It's the typical mid-life crisis kind of thing, where you just stop and wonder, 'Should I go back to university and get a law degree?' I kind of looked around me and thought, 'What kind of idiot am I that I've just spent the last 10 years writing novels? Financially, I'm pretty much where I was when I was 28.'

I've had a fast track to who I want to be. I know all of my friends are struggling to what to pick in college, and I've been given a fast pass to kick start my future.

In my early twenties, I got the basics covered. In retrospect, one of the great things about success is that I never really had to work in a factory full-time. So that's a blessing.

I wasn't a kid trying to become famous. I wasn't a part of any Disney Channel wheelhouse. I was basically a black kid whose parents put him into the business so he could go to college.

With the first money I got, I built my parents a house back home, gave them a string of credit cards, and said 'Go.'

My parents believed in the power of education.

Your parents only want what's best for you. They know a career in the arts usually means living paycheck to paycheck; they just want you to know that you have other options!

I think my mom and dad both wanted to get across to me that... I obviously grew up with great privilege and was very lucky and was able to afford college and not have student loans, and they would pay for college, but beyond that, it would be up to me to make a living.

I grew up without any security - I obviously had lots of security because I have two parents who had a good marriage and stayed together, and we had a creative household full of ideas, but there was never any financial security. So I knew I could have a good life without that.

Money was always on my mind when I was growing up. So I was always wondering how we were going to afford this and that. Acting seemed to be a shortcut out of the mess.

My family are quite academic, and I was set to study economics and politics at university.